Our thanks to Grayson Currin!
Bloodyminded
Within The Walls
BloodLust!; 2013
By Grayson Currin
December 6, 2013
7.5
For more than 40 minutes, the raw noise collective Bloodyminded
plows through a series of harrowing drones, feedback bursts, mutated
screams, static blitzes, and circuit collapses. There are imprecations
hurled in both English and Spanish and floods of sound so caustic and
strong they rattle both brain and core. But the real shock of Within the Walls,
the group’s first LP in seven years, comes at the start of the final
track. Through a layer of squall and around the calm narration of
Bloodyminded leader Mark Solotroff, a gently eerie keyboard line arrives
like a glowing ghost. It’s only a few lurid notes, set to repeat and
distend slowly into a blur. It’s also one of the most reserved and
beautiful sounds in Bloodyminded’s two decades as a group—a sudden,
surprising melody surrounded on all sides by madness. Played by heavy
metal producer Sanford Parker, the little synthesizer theme eventually
gives into Bloodyminded’s power electronics din, battling the squall in
both volume and insistence. But make no mistake: It's a successful
attempt from long-running noise veterans to use a new trick. It works.
The coda is actually a cover of “Inverted Ruins”, a Locrian number under which Solotroff hissed the same words on that group’s great 2010 album, Territories. The Bloodyminded reworking is faithful enough, using the same slow crawl toward chaos but promoting his vocals to the position of overlord. The choice to include the cover is an apt one; in the past few years, harsh electronic music has wormed its way closer toward indie rock’s core, thanks to the likes of Prurient, Pharmakon, Wolf Eyes, and, in some capacity, Locrian, too. “Inverted Ruins”, then, makes the precursor position of Solotroff and Bloodyminded clear. They are pioneers to a scene that has sprawled. Indirectly, it also reinforces the group’s fiercely prolific nature, no matter how slow the group’s proper output or live appearances have become. Member Pieter Schoolwerth helms Wierd Records, for instance, while Solotroff and his fellow vocalist Isidro Reyes have pumped out more than a dozen volumes in less than seven years under the name Fortieth Day. Bloodyminded itself has slowed, but its members have necessarily not.
What’s more, the time between Within the Walls and 2006’s Magnetism has only seemed to condense the band’s strengths, as these 13 songs consolidate what’s often been best and most intriguing about Bloodyminded’s output. For instance, Gift Givers, from 2005, pitted Solotroff’s clipped English phrases against the French lyrics of Xavier Laradji. Within the Walls instead works with Solotroff’s words and the Spanish lyrics of Reyes, who often hurls them out beneath the dominant tongue. Two scripts in two different languages might sound disorienting, but this multilingual approach actually makes Within the Walls a truly multivalent listen, the sort of thing you’ll want to hear again and again in order to tease out the nuances of what they’ve made. How do Solotroff and Reyes’ interconnected lyrics relate, and how do they work against the shifts around them? During “Fatal Breath”, for instance, Solotroff seethes about the inevitability of destruction, about systems that fall apart simply by existing; meanwhile, Reyes lurks beneath him and then occasionally jumps in front, retrenching the invective with his own views on corruption, oblivion, and unavoidable anguish. The sound is a nightmare. They complement and contradict one another throughout the record, constantly reinforcing the music’s tumult.
Within the Walls alternates between long, ponderous poems shouted into or against the noise vortex and five ruthless bursts of pugilistic feedback and static lasting between nine and 68 seconds each. Bloodyminded has often used this see-saw technique in the past, onstage and offstage, but here it’s more deliberate and careful, meant to break up the verbose musings as much as it to show the group’s sonic willpower. More than anything, however, the ebb and flow appropriately spotlights the depth of Bloodyminded, a group whose very power and antagonistic nature could make their records monolithic and paradoxically sedate. But once again, they’ve found new ways to shock and enthrall, even if that requires a vivid recollection and recombination of the past.
The coda is actually a cover of “Inverted Ruins”, a Locrian number under which Solotroff hissed the same words on that group’s great 2010 album, Territories. The Bloodyminded reworking is faithful enough, using the same slow crawl toward chaos but promoting his vocals to the position of overlord. The choice to include the cover is an apt one; in the past few years, harsh electronic music has wormed its way closer toward indie rock’s core, thanks to the likes of Prurient, Pharmakon, Wolf Eyes, and, in some capacity, Locrian, too. “Inverted Ruins”, then, makes the precursor position of Solotroff and Bloodyminded clear. They are pioneers to a scene that has sprawled. Indirectly, it also reinforces the group’s fiercely prolific nature, no matter how slow the group’s proper output or live appearances have become. Member Pieter Schoolwerth helms Wierd Records, for instance, while Solotroff and his fellow vocalist Isidro Reyes have pumped out more than a dozen volumes in less than seven years under the name Fortieth Day. Bloodyminded itself has slowed, but its members have necessarily not.
What’s more, the time between Within the Walls and 2006’s Magnetism has only seemed to condense the band’s strengths, as these 13 songs consolidate what’s often been best and most intriguing about Bloodyminded’s output. For instance, Gift Givers, from 2005, pitted Solotroff’s clipped English phrases against the French lyrics of Xavier Laradji. Within the Walls instead works with Solotroff’s words and the Spanish lyrics of Reyes, who often hurls them out beneath the dominant tongue. Two scripts in two different languages might sound disorienting, but this multilingual approach actually makes Within the Walls a truly multivalent listen, the sort of thing you’ll want to hear again and again in order to tease out the nuances of what they’ve made. How do Solotroff and Reyes’ interconnected lyrics relate, and how do they work against the shifts around them? During “Fatal Breath”, for instance, Solotroff seethes about the inevitability of destruction, about systems that fall apart simply by existing; meanwhile, Reyes lurks beneath him and then occasionally jumps in front, retrenching the invective with his own views on corruption, oblivion, and unavoidable anguish. The sound is a nightmare. They complement and contradict one another throughout the record, constantly reinforcing the music’s tumult.
Within the Walls alternates between long, ponderous poems shouted into or against the noise vortex and five ruthless bursts of pugilistic feedback and static lasting between nine and 68 seconds each. Bloodyminded has often used this see-saw technique in the past, onstage and offstage, but here it’s more deliberate and careful, meant to break up the verbose musings as much as it to show the group’s sonic willpower. More than anything, however, the ebb and flow appropriately spotlights the depth of Bloodyminded, a group whose very power and antagonistic nature could make their records monolithic and paradoxically sedate. But once again, they’ve found new ways to shock and enthrall, even if that requires a vivid recollection and recombination of the past.
